


is anyone there?

by a_miiraculer, clairelutra (exosolarmoon)



Series: I want the K [13]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Humor, Fluff without Plot, Kissing, Sick Character, Sickfic, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Unresolved Sexual Tension, chat noir knows, existing half-reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 08:42:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11100993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_miiraculer/pseuds/a_miiraculer, https://archiveofourown.org/users/exosolarmoon/pseuds/clairelutra
Summary: she depends on you, she depends on youshe'll go alone, and never speak of this againwe depend on you, we depend—(I'll depend on you)When his partner is laid up in bed with a cold, Chat takes it upon himself to take care of her. Fluff ensues.





	is anyone there?

**Author's Note:**

> //revives this old collection yet again
> 
> ONE MORE AND I'LL FINALLY BE DONE WITH ALL THE PROMPTS //WhOOPS
> 
> anyway this has been sitting in my draft folder for a longass time at like 95% so i finally put myself together to add the last 5% so. here y'all go \o/

3: Nose Kiss

He didn't think he'd stopped smiling since she told him.

Maybe it was silly, but...

She _trusted_ him. She trusted him with one of her most closely guarded secrets, and maybe it had been out of necessity, but...

She trusted _him._

She trusted _him_ with her identity, with her bare face and her home and her troubles, and now he would never have to worry about what would happen if she just didn't come to patrol one day. (Like his mother just hadn't turned up to one of their visitations.) He'd know if she was sick or injured or... or worse, which he _wasn't thinking about,_ but if she didn't come, he'd know where to look.

And now? Now he could do things like drop in on her if she was having a bad day, and protect her when her timer ran out before the akuma of the week was defeated, and just... _see_ her, _talk_ to her without needing to be in mortal danger.

Chat was in _heaven._

His lady, on the other hand, was not.

"Seriously, Chat," she groaned, or would have if she'd had a voice. "I'm _fine._ It's just a cold."

This statement probably would have been more convincing if she hadn't followed it up with a series of wet, painful-sounding coughs.

"In sickness and in health," Chat insisted as he rubbed her back and placed the bottle of raspberry lemonade into her hand.

"'re not actually married, Chat," she mumbled, accepting the bottle and sipping cautiously.

"That's what you think," he shot back, though the archness of the remark was lost when she winced and switched to gulping the drink instead.

While she was busy, Chat looked around for the box of tissues.

The whole room smelled like sickness, that undefinable smell that always came with a cold, which probably wasn't helped by the small drifts of used tissues that piled up in odd places. Marinette had begged for darkness on behalf of her headache, so the curtains were shut tight, the skylight blocked off and only her desk lamp and a few intrepid rays of sunshine were left to light the room. His own additions, an unopened bottle of cough syrup ( _I'll heal faster without it, and it tastes disgusting_ ) and a bag of decimated hard candies ( _These are good, though, thanks kitty_ ) resided on the desk below the loft bed, forgotten.

The tissues were on the shelf above her bed. He reached over her to grab the box.

Marinette handed him back the bottle when she was done with it, wheezing a little as she caught up on the air her stuffed nose had denied her.

He offered her one of the tissues, but it went mostly ignored as she flopped over onto her bed with a dramatic huff. She mumbled something indecipherable into her pillow and shivered.

Chat's heart gave a little twist.

Knowing full well that he'd be waking up with a horrible sore throat in a few days, he flopped down on his side beside her, watching her exposed cheek and ear for any sign of emotion as he said, "Sorry, didn't catch that."

She pulled her flushed, miserable face out of the pillow and pouted.

" _Hate_ being sick," she repeated, snuffling with, to his horror, _tears_ in her eyes. She accepted his hastily re-offered tissue and blew her nose, leaning into his touch when he stroked her shoulder. "And 'm cold."

He sat up to retrieve the heating pads, but remembered that she already had them all lining her bed. Her fever must have been getting worse.

She caught his wrist before he could get up for hot water bottles, but when he looked back, she let go like it'd burned her.

"Nothing!" she rasped in response to the question that must've been on his face. "Nothing, you're just... Nothing. Never mind."

"Very flattering, my lady," he teased, but stayed right where he was. If she wanted him to stay, like _hell_ was he going to move.

She actually did manage a groan that time, weak and crackling as she flopped back into her pillow and burrito'd herself in her bedding. "Was gonna say, 'you're just _warm_.' So hush."

Chat hushed, though it was more out of surprise at what she'd suggested than as per her actual request.

Slowly, cautiously, with his heart thumping in his chest, he lowered himself onto the bedspread next to her.

She turned her head to face him, blinking glassy, red-rimmed eyes in faint bafflement, and Chat swallowed, raising his arms in shy offering.

Or, raised one arm and made a similar gesture with the one that was blocked by the bed.

He was doing his best.

And, after a long moment of semi-confused silence, she seemed to recognize that. Her face melted into something soft and sweet and pulse-staggering, and she twitched up the corner of her nest of quilts in explicit invitation.

With utmost care, Chat slipped into her small fabric sauna, heart thumping and the heat making it through even the protection of his suit.

As soon as he was settled in his rightful place as her hot water bottle, Marinette wrapped her arms around his waist and tucked her head under his chin, shivering in little, convulsive shudders, making a tiny, pathetic plea of a whine in the back of her throat.

Chat gingerly cradled her in return, touching his nose to her hair as his gut twisted itself in knots.

She was so _small_ like this, open and weak and needing, and she kept on _letting him in._

She could've shut him out when he'd offered his body heat, could have let him go and retrieve the real hot water bottles.

She could've shut him out when he turned up on her balcony bearing sweets and medicine, could have told him to leave so he wouldn't get sick too.

She could've shut him out instead of telling him _her identity_ , could have gone on all the same, keeping the world on her shoulders like she always had.

But she didn't. She kept choosing to let him in, eyes wide open and a trusting little smile on her face, confident that he wouldn't let her down.

And he wouldn't. God, he swore, promised, prayed he'd never let her down, because she _trusted him._

She trusted _him._

Chat still didn't know what to do with it, could only hold her regard like the precious, precious gift it was and do whatever he could to keep it safe.

Which, right now, meant very firmly thinking of the physics homework he'd left on his desk at home, and _not_ about the fact that this was the closest he'd ever been to her without her suit.

She slid one shapely thigh between his, fitting every inch of herself against every inch of him and slotting them together like puzzle pieces.

Remind him: what was 'physics' again?

Chat swallowed down the dazed laugh that wanted to break free at the thought ( _that plan died fast_ ) and held her closer, breathing in the stale, cloying smell of illness to remind himself that now was _not the time._

It worked, for the most part, cooling his blood and calming his scattered emotions with the protectiveness that seemed to grab him in a chokehold. His heart still skipped a little whenever her breath swirled into his collar, but there wasn't much he could do about that.

"'M gonna get you sick," she mumbled, ear to his shoulder and her lips brushing his collarbone.

Chat swallowed at the apology and vulnerability lacing the words. "No worries. That's what the cough syrup is for."

She gave him a soft laugh, clutching him as she shuddered through another spasm.

He thought that would be the end of the conversation, but Marinette seemed to have other ideas.

"...Hey, Chat?"

"Yeah?"

She sighed, a rush of damp, too-hot breath over the dip of his throat. "...Thank you."

His insides all lurched exactly one inch to the right.

"Not just for this," she clarified for his bell pull. "For... for everything."

He closed his eyes, burying his nose in her hair and telling himself that he couldn't feel tears pricking his eyelids. "'Course."

She was silent for a moment, and then: "I mean," and she broke off with another hacking cough, turning away from him but accepting the next tissue he offered. "I mean like... for... for..."

She trailed off and thumped her head against his shoulder, and Chat chucked, pressing a kiss to her hair.

 _"Always,"_ he promised, and then realized that sounded a _little_ too much like a marriage proposal.

Oops.

His very sick partner rasped an answering chuckle against his chest before breaking off with a little wince he couldn't see, but knew was there, nonetheless. "In sickness and in health, kitty?"

"Mhmm," he agreed, knowing she was close enough to feel his heart thumping.

She made a little noise that might've been a hum if her vocal chords had been willing to back her up, and Chat dropped another kiss to the crown of her head almost involuntarily, chest constricted painfully tight.

"Silly," she whispered to it, to his wayward heart, at some indefinable pitch between gratitude and reproach. "Silly, silly kitty."

"Silly for love, maybe," he tried to joke. He was too serious to carry it off properly. He gave up and kissed her hair again. "'Love you, my lady."

A moment of silence.

"...And 'm still your lady?"

It was such an _odd_ question that he had to pull back and stare at her for a minute.

She didn't look at him. "Even when 'm sick and gross and... just me?"

"...Why _wouldn't_ you be?" he asked, out of utter confusion. He had the faint feeling that he should be offended somehow.

It got a hitching, cracked giggle out of her, a slightly out-of-it smile that she flashed him with fever-brightened eyes, and then she was nuzzling his chest again, sighing fever-hot over his heart.

"No reason."

And that signaled another lapse in the conversation.

This one didn't last long either — just long enough to make him frown at the ceiling in thought, wondering what the hell _that_ was about — and then she was speaking again.

"Hey, Chat?"

"Yeah?"

Marinette traced a little pattern over his right pectoral, hesitating, then huffed a little sigh and said, "Remind me to do something when I'm not sick?"

Ah, internal to-do lists while you were stuck somewhere. He knew the feeling. "Yeah, sure."

Her next huff was laced with amusement.

"Remind me to kiss you."

Chat's idle thought processes all screeched to a halt.

_There was no way..._

"S-sorry," he croaked, voice forgotten somewhere behind him as he pulled back to look at her. "Didn't quite catch that."

She didn't even open her eyes, just smiled peacefully and said, "Remind me to kiss you when I'm not sick."

She _actually said that._

 _Why wait?_ wondered every ounce of Chat's being as his heart kickstarted back into action.

"I mean," he said before he could stop himself. "We're already here..."

He regretted it as soon as he said it.

Marinette just swatted his arm. "So you won't get sick, you dork."

"Right," he mumbled, ears heating and stomach flipping. "Sorry. I'll-I'll remind you."

She smiled at him again, sweet and soft and dazed, an expression that lasted just long enough to tie his gut up in knots before she was wincing and snuffling again, quietly miserable.

A sympathetic noise escaped him as he handed her the tissue she'd turned down before, and she accepted it with another not-groan.

One more used tissue on the pile, and she dove back down into his embrace, pillowing her head on his arm and she pulling him close, clumsy as she was wracked with another shudder.

He folded her close, ready to play the waiting game with her fever — first to leave loses, and Chat sure as hell didn't come here to _lose_ — and the shudders left Marinette for long enough for her to melt into him, ever closer.

She butted her nose against his collarbone. " _'Wish_ I could kiss you now, though."

Chat's guts tried to turn inside out.

 _It was sort of like she was determined to give him a heart attack_ resided in the back of his mind as he pulled away to fix her with a Look.

She still wasn't looking at him, just smiling a little smile that said, _yes, of course she was trying to give him a heart attack._

It would have been irritating, except that she was sick and woozy and cuddly, and her method of attack was murmured words of affection, and it was _working,_ among other things.

" _Ladybug,_ " he reproached, because he really had to, and also because his chest was still aching from the jolt she'd given him.

She somehow looked even less repentant, childishly mischievous as she said, "What? 'S true."

He groaned and dropped his forehead against hers, knowing she could feel what his pulse did at that, and she just giggled.

The giggles were cut short by a long coughing fit, one that forced her upright then doubled her over, and Chat could only rub her back and hand her more tissues, aching in sympathy.

In the state she was in, it was enough to tire her out, leaving her to slump against his shoulder with a rattling sigh.

"I _really_ hate being sick," she moaned, turning to push her face into the crook of his neck.

He leaned away enough to bend down and kiss her nose as he wrapped the blankets back around her, something in him _singing_ when she moved with him, submitting to his care with quiet, peaceable acquiescence.

"I know," was all he could say. "I'm sorry."

She just wrapped the blankets tighter around herself and folded herself back down with an exhausted noise. "Wake me up when September ends."

Chat swallowed a snigger and folded down next to her. "You'll get better quicker than that, y'know."

"Then wake me up then," she huffed, wriggling closer and pillowing her head on his bicep with another miserable snuffle.

She accepted the proffered tissue and blew her nose, then did the same with the next three and looked a little worse each time.

She gave up her nose-clearing venture and left the fifth tissue just resting on her face, giving him a look from beneath it that could only be interpreted as _can you believe this?_

He kissed her forehead, because he really just couldn't _not,_ and handed her the bottle of raspberry lemonade, which she took with another rattling sigh, downing half the bottle in quick gulps.

"September," she croaked as she handed it back to him, unrefreshed but not for lack of effort. "Definitely wake me up after September."

"But it's February," he pointed out as he set it on the shelf, smiling. "September's really far away."

Marinette pulled the blankets over her head.

" _Good_ ," mumbled the lump resting on his shoulder.

"But you'll miss summer break."

"Don't caaaare."

"But then I won't get to see you in a swimsuit."

The lump on his shoulder revealed itself to be one very sick and very unimpressed superheroine, who, despite being unimpressed, still seemed to be squashing a smile.

Chat grinned. "And you won't get to see me in my swimsuit either. Have I mentioned that I look—"

Marinette re-buried herself.

"—hot in a swimsuit," she finished, tired and amused. "Yeah, you've mentioned that."

"Good. It's a really important thing to remember, y'know."

"Mhmm," Marinette agreed, snuggling in still further. "I'll remember."

Chat's heart thumped in his throat, too big and too tight to form words around, so he didn't try.

"...You know, as much as you say you're hot, I can't to imagine you in anything but something like one of those scuba gear outfits," Marinette said after a short pause, frowning at the far wall.

" _Pffffft,_ " Chat choked, stomach cramping in shock and hilarity at the sudden mental image. "With all the gear?"

Marinette nodded, looking up at him as her lips twitched into a mirroring smile. "And the _really huge_ goggles. And flippers."

Still laughing, he bumped his forehead against the crown of her head. "And _you_ think I couldn't work it."

"Weeell..." she drawled, now laughing herself.

"Well, excuse _you,_ " Chat huffed with all the mock offense he could muster. "I could _totally_ work the scuba gear."

"'Could?'" she echoed, fingers touching her chin in idle consideration as she watched him with eyes warm behind the film of illness. "You've never scuba-dived before?"

"I wish," he sighed. "But no. My father's kinda strict."

Marinette patted his chest in sympathy, then wrinkled her nose in confusion. "But then... what _would_ you wear?"

He beamed, getting brighter and brighter for every ounce of _do **not**_ that entered her expression. "Why, my lady, how scandalous! Isn't that a third-date kind of question?"

She delicately placed a pillow over his face to muffle his mirth. Unsurprisingly, that did little.

"Excuse you," she wheezed, and then took a small break to cough into her shoulder and push her upper half on top of his chest. "If you _don't_ want to share the details, all you had to do was say so."

"Never said that," he said cheerfully, unmuffled by the throw pillow — it was mostly pressed against his eyes. "It's a speedo, obviously."

He relaxed into the not-smothering and waited for Marinette to shoot him down with a _oh my god_ or a _Chat why_ or a _well, you sure are eager_.

She... did not.

She didn't say anything _else_ either, for five long seconds, and Chat pushed away the pillow over his face with an apology on his lips, only to find a speculative look that set his blood on fire.

"Is it?" his lady wanted to know, licking her lips and smirking down at him in an oddly familiar fashion.

Chat's mouth dropped open.

The look didn't let up.

She must be fever delirious. She _must._

"I-I mean," he said, voice cracking about three times in two words as the sides of his face heated tellingly and his heart tried to escape from his chest. "If-if you _wanted_ me to wear one..."

Fever delirious or not, he wasn't sure the word 'no' was in his vocabulary at the moment.

Marinette somehow managed to look both sheepish and even _more_ interested, and Chat was pretty sure he'd be fighting this boner for the rest of the night.

"Only if you'd, um, you know, not mind," she murmured, overly casual as the fever flush darkened on her cheeks.

His lady had expressed a wish to see him in a state of undress. Chat could think of very few things he'd mind _less_. "S-sure."

The look that crossed her face then could only be described as embarrassed pleasure, and Chat stared at the ceiling like it was the most fascinating thing in the world.

"Remind me of something else when I'm better?"

He hummed automatically—

"Remind me that you wouldn't mind wearing a speedo for me," she purred, sticking her knuckle in her reddened mouth and winking at him.

—and remembered seconds too late that Marinette currently seemed determined to repay his care with months' worth of fantasy fodder and an early death by sexual and romantic frustration.

Slowly, he lowered his eyes from the ceiling.

Marinette sniffled and beamed at him, unrepentant.

Chat rolled over very slowly and very carefully, doing his best to not dislodge his passenger.

"Sure," he assured her pillow. "I'll remind you of this conversation. _After_ you sleep. Because it's definitely sleep time now."

_Oh god, please stop trying to kill me._

Marinette huffed at his back. "But you haven't even asked about _my_ bathing suit yet."

"I'm sure it's amazing," he placated tiredly, desperately curious but also knowing better than to ask.

"It's re-e-ed," she enticed cheerfully, walking her fingers up his spine.

"...Is it?" Chat asked, going for 'disinterested' and failing entirely.

Marinette giggled. "It could be a wetsuit for all you know," she pointed out.

Marinette in a bright red wetsuit with bedraggled pony tails dripping on her slim neck and her freckles multiplying under the summer sun...?

"...That would be really cute."

Her fingers paused in their journey. He got the impression that Marinette was staring at the back of his head. "... _Seriously?_ "

"'Course." Maybe not drop-dead sexy like the first images that'd flashed before his eyes, but very, _very_ cute. "You're cute in everything."

"Then what if it was a bikini?" she teased, in a half-testing sort of tone, and Chat choked on his tongue. "Would I look cute in that?"

...'Cute' wasn't quite the word that came to mind.

"Th-that... I, uh..." he rasped, knowing she could probably feel his heart jump into doubletime right through his back. He cleared his throat. "That would be... something."

Something he'd _really_ like to see.

He was only human, and _holy shit_ that would be a lot of skin.

"Hmm..." said Marinette, and had the room always been this warm, or was that just Chat?

She didn't leave him to stew.

"I actually haven't decided on the cut yet," she confessed, drawing ticklish little circles between his shoulder blades. "I was thinking about a bikini, but I'm kind of shy, you know?"

Chat _didn't_ know, in fact. He could think of very few people that had _less_ reason to be shy than Ladybug, local superheroine that saved the city regularly in skintight not-spandex.

"I'm not sure I'm brave enough to show that much skin in public," she said, and, okay, Chat could understand that. Not everyone was used to having their bodies on display like that, as disap—

"...I wouldn't mind _you_ seeing it though."

—pointing as that... was...

...

What.

"Maybe I could wear that one when it's just us."

Chat's mind ran headlong into 'Ladybug modeling a sexy bathing suit for him _in private_ ' and just sort of... stopped there.

Gave up, if you will.

(Miles and _miles_ of bare skin set off by blood red scraps of fabric, embarrassment-flushed cheeks and a cheeky grin, a you-can-look-but-don't-touch pose to fuel his fantasies for _years_ —

Unless, of course, she decided that he _could_ touch, crooking her fingers in invitation or sliding into his lap, and...

And...

And if he chased that fantasy any further, he might just pass out wholesale.)

"...Chat?"

Chat opened his mouth, summoned his voice, and made a strangled, unprintable noise into her pillow.

"...Did I break you?"

Chat thought. Chat contemplated. Chat mused.

All he came up with was 'Ladybug in a bikini she was wearing for his eyes alone.'

Somewhere in the midst of all his overheating brain cells, he found the wherewithal to nod.

"Pfft," said the minx at his back, who then trailed off into a small coughing fit. Then, hesitantly and a little cautiously, she added, "You... _do_ know I was just teasing you, right?"

He hadn't known that, but it made sense.

Her words were enough of a mental dousing that he managed to remember how to work his lungs, and he exhaled a long string of garbled swearwords, then pulled his face out of her pillow to fix her with an injured look.

"That was _cruel_."

She sucked on her lower lip for a second, a curious, contemplative glint in her eye that had his pulse spiking all over again. "I... didn't think you'd react like _that_."

Chat stared. "You didn't."

She shrugged, looking a little flustered. "Should I have?"

 _Well,_ thought Chat. _It's not like I tried to propose to you earlier or anything. It's not like I've been hopelessly in love with you for years now. It not like that suggestion was more intense than most of my wet dreams._

He wasn't sure how much of that she read on his face, but it was enough to make her blush and avoid his eye as her cold reasserted itself.

She accepted the tissue he handed her and looked sheepish again. "You could never let me live it down?"

It was the perfect plan, except for the part where he'd have to remember it every time he wanted to bring it up.

"Let's... let's just... go to sleep," he offered, partially because she was still sick and still needed it, and partially because if she was asleep she wouldn't keep teasing him.

Marinette snuffled, blinked, and surrendered. "Okay."

Chat sighed in relief, and wondered, guiltily, if sneaking off later to find privacy would make him an awful person or just a self-preserving one.

He handed her the bottle of raspberry lemonade to finish off and fluffed her pillow perfunctorily, which earned him an amused look as Marinette lowered herself down next to him.

"...Would you forgive me if I actually did it?" she wanted to know, looking at him with luminous blue eyes that were decidedly less clouded than they'd been when he'd arrived. "If I actually wore the bikini, I mean."

Chat's own eyes slammed shut.

 _That_ had not been unintentional.

" _Sleep_ ," he just about begged.

With a raspy little sigh, Marinette acquiesced.

If there was any way to recount this conversation to her later when she was fully cognizant _without_ falling on his own sword in the process, he totally would.

In the meantime, Chat applied himself to zen meditation and hot water bottle duties with a vengeance.

* * *

Somehow, and only god knew how, he fell asleep.

He woke hours later to actual darkness outside the drapes, to the smell of a room that wasn't his and the feeling of fingers carding through his hair.

It was such a _pleasant_ way to be woken he couldn't complain, even though he and sudden rousings had never been friends. He sighed an appreciative hum as the fingers in his hair hit a good spot and felt himself melt a little further into the mattress.

Someone above him giggled, rasping but feminine, and Chat dimly registered _Ladybug._

Three seconds of delay, slowed by the sleep still in his brain, and then his heart lurched _hard._

That was _Ladybug_ who was _Marinette,_ who was carding her fingers through his hair, who had been sick out from school and patrol, and whom he'd spent the past few hours avoiding his responsibilities to take care of.

Who was carding slim, bare fingers through his hair.

That part was important.

One of those fingers traced the shell of his human ear and Chat felt a shudder race down his spine. That felt _really_ good.

"Oops," she whispered, moving back to the safer, more distant territory of his hair. "Sorry."

" _Nngh,_ " Chat managed in protest, jerking his head in an effort to get his ears back under her hand. "'S good."

Instead of obliging him, Marinette pulled her hand away entirely. "Awake, minou?"

Chat sighed and stretched, giving up on the hope of more ear-petting and blinking the sleep out of his eyes. Her digital clock blinked _1:12_ back at him. "Mh. Looks like."

"Sleep well?"

She was framed, haloed in lamplight, sweat curling the locks along her hairline and a tired smile on her face, a book laid open in her lap and her eyes clear of the fever glaze, and if Chat had to take a moment to catch his breath again, well, maybe it was understandable.

"Y-yeah," he croaked, and then coughed to clear his throat, noting that he could already kind of feel the cold taking hold. "You look... better."

'Like something out of a dream' would probably be too sappy this early in the morning.

Her tired smile softened and warmed, a hint of gratitude in the expression that had his heart faltering before she'd even opened her mouth, and Chat found his eyes rooted to her ceiling, tracing familiar whorls in the paint.

Okay, maybe it wouldn't be too sappy.

"Fever's gone," she reported, and then coughed into the crook of her elbow.

Chat offered her a tissue on automatic.

Marinette paused, studying it for a moment before accepting it gingerly. "Thank you."

Chat realized, belatedly, that she'd caught his wrist along with it.

"I... I mean it, you know," she whispered, almost pensive, and Chat remembered her frustration earlier in trying to thank him.

He pushed himself up, steeling his heart with a deep breath and opening his mouth to tell her, once again, that he understood, and found her smiling at him still.

With a tiny, stuttered sigh, he shut his mouth again.

The smile deepened, her thumb tracing over his knuckles like a worry stone. She hesitated for a moment and then, meeting and catching his eye, brought those knuckles to her mouth.

"Thank you," she whispered across them, and then let her eyes flutter shut as she pressed a kiss right next to his ring and let him go.

It took him five seconds to find his voice, and then another seven to manage anything vaguely coherent, his hand floating where she'd left it, _tingling_.

"Y-y-yeah! Of course! I mean, anytime. I mean, always. I mean—"

He tried to stand up and smashed his head against her ceiling.

"Nath—! I mean! My-my m— my guardian is going to kill me, I should really be, um, going, or-or, uh..."

His _entire body_ was tingling, his heart pounding painfully hard and his insides scrambled, overheated and overexcited with goosebumps sweeping down his spine and his face on fire — all over a touch that had lasted mere _seconds_.

Chat wondered if he was overreacting.

Granted, that touch had been _Ladybug kissing his hand_ , so maybe it wasn't an overreaction at all.

When he finally gathered the courage to look back at her, the smile had slipped, replaced by a look of surprise that only lasted until she met his eye again, and then it was melting into that heart-stopping smile all over again.

Which was really rather rude of her, looking at him like _that_ when he couldn't kiss her.

( _Remind me to kiss you,_ she'd said.)

(Which went beyond rude and was actually just _unfair_ , really, because he was used to not being able to kiss her, but now there was a big fat _yet_ tacked onto the end of that rule, and _it_ was teasing him almost as badly as she was.)

A pastime she didn't seem to be quite done with yet, because a glint of mischief entered her expression, and then she was catching his other hand and experimentally kissing that one as well.

Her experiment resulted in a faint, strangled noise emitting from Chat's throat.

"I," Chat started, and then coughed when the single syllable managed to hit three pitches all on its own. "I'm gonna. Go."

"Don't die," Marinette advised, smug grin playing with the corners of her mouth.

Oh hell.

Chat took a second to steady his breathing, hitching up a passably cocky smirk and leaning his elbow against the wall. "D'aww, are you worried about me, Bugaboo?"

Her smug grin was pushed aside by a returned sly smirk, the glint of mischief flaring and hardening, and it occurred to Chat, quite suddenly, that Nathalie at her worst probably wasn't half as dangerous as the girl before him.

He stood back up before she could open her mouth for another assassination attempt, wary of her low ceiling this time.

"Which! Is! Very kind of you!" Chat stammered, fumbling at the latch of her glass trapdoor. "I should go now, so Na— my guardian will kill me less."

It was long past any opportunity Adrien had had to lessen his sentence with Nathalie, but going now would keep _Marinette_ from killing him, _so._

Marinette who was watching him with a half-amused, half-innocent look as he stumbled and fumbled and stammered his way through leaving her while she was still sick.

A combination of factors made him pause when he finally unlocked the door.

"...Remember to rest," he commanded as sternly as he could, knowing perfectly well that she was probably going to end up doing whatever she wanted but determined to try anyway. "And drink lots of fluids."

"Okay."

He didn't look back as he went on, something about the tone of her voice telling him that looking back would be a bad idea. "And don't come to patrol for at _least_ a week — not until you're better."

"Okay."

"A-and call me if you need me to get you anything else."

"Okay."

Odd tone of voice or no, her quiet, amicable agreements were unnerving enough to make him glance down at her in concern.

She was just... _smiling_ at him, selfsame and soft and sweet and just as breathtaking as she'd been when he'd woken up, and Chat felt the sides of his face heat.

"...And stop agreeing with me. It's _weird._ "

In the corner of his eye, he saw her smile widen. "Okay."

_Ugh._

He narrowed his eyes and pointed at her, unimpressed. " _Rude._ Here I am, just trying to do my duties as your partner..."

She rose onto her knees, caught his hand, and kissed it, eyes half-lidded and radioactive beneath her lashes.

Chat smashed his head into the wall again, though he barely felt it through the way his heart tried to leap right out of his mouth.

Marinette glanced up at him with a look that might have been seductive in another life, if there's been anything left of Chat that wasn't already completely seduced.

"I know." _Still_ smiling. "Thank you."

His ears were broken. His ears were most definitely broken, because instead of _I know. Thank you,_ he somehow heard, _I love you._

A noise oddly reminiscent of a broken tape player escaped his throat.

"R-right, th-th-then I'm-I'm, uh, go."

With that, Chat pointed generally where he thought the exit might be, and, taking one last glance at that deceptively soft look, hauled himself out of her skylight and fairly ran for his life, lilting giggles chasing him as he went.

(He didn't run into any walls this time, thankfully.)

* * *

It was another two weeks before they were on patrol together again (because, true to predictions, Chat had gotten sick almost immediately afterwards), which meant that he had two week to obsess over the implications of everything she'd said while half-fever-delirious before he could figure out whether she _meant_ any of it or not.

He was still psyching himself up to ask about it when she landed next to him on that week's rendezvous rooftop.

"Feeling better, kitty?"

"You know it," he said, and flexed, catching her smiling out of the corner of his eye and preening all the more for it. He topped the performance off with a salute. "Spick and span and right on time."

"Jolly good, _sah_ ," Ladybug said, folding her arm over her stomach and looking down her nose in the most butler-y expression he'd ever seen.

He offered his arm with a silly grin that just didn't seem to want to quit. "Shall we go?"

Ladybug took his arm, and then collided into his side, swallowing down giggles, and it took Chat a good three seconds to realize she was cuddling into him.

Thusly, it was a much redder Chat that put his best foot forward, a storm of butterflies in his gut and his skin tingling wherever she touched.

And then Ladybug said, "Oh, wait."

"Hm?"

She smiled up at him, bubbly bright. "I think remember you promising you'd remind me about something..."

_...Oh._

She cocked her head and batted her eyelashes, innocence too deliberate to believe. "You don't remember what that was, do you?"

Chat's heart was sitting somewhere near his mouth as he leaned over and said, " _I_ seem to remember something about a kiss, but, you know, that's just me."

...If... If she really was going to make good on that one teasing comment from two weeks ago...

"Hmm..." said Ladybug, dropping her gaze to his lips. "How about that."

Her voice thrilled right through Chat's entire body, and _oh god_ if she really _was_ going to... going to _kiss him..._

She slipped a hand around the back of his neck, brought him down to her level, and did just that.

It was soft. It was sweet. It was _mind-melting_.

Her tiny gasp at the first slide of their lips, her shiver at the second, her hum at the third — it _scrambled_ him, left him turned inside out, squirming and shuddering and devouring a fix for an addiction he hadn't known he had.

And all she did was giggle, purr, and melt another inch into him in return.

His heart was still trying to burst at the touch.

It was also far, far, _far_ too short. She kissed him just long enough for that addiction to take hold of every part of him, and then she drew back, breath hitting his lips in a puff of hot-cold-electric _sensation._

"There we go," she whispered, a hand rested on his heaving chest preventing him from chasing her down. "Now, there was something else..."

Chat panted, swallowing back the needy whine sitting in his throat, and managed a, "Wh-what?"

Ladybug's newly reddened mouth curved into a grin.

"Something about a speedo, if I'm remembering right?"

_Gnk._

"Oh right," he said, still rasping but clear enough for understanding. "That."

Ladybug batted her eyelashes again. "Is that offer still open? I have a few designs..."

Chat sighed, wrestling that screaming addiction back into a box for later, and said, "Yeah, sure. I can model for you."

Ladybug blinked.

"Well, I kind of meant..." She trailed off, staring at him thoughtfully for a moment and then smiling. "Thanks, Chat."

"Meant what?" he tried to ask, but Ladybug was already moving on to, "Could you come over sometime next week?"

"Yeah, I could do that."

Nothing quite like stripping down to almost nothing for the love of your life, not because she wanted to see you naked, but because she needed someone to model her designs.

Ah well. Chat wouldn't have it any other way.

(And then, of course, he dropped into Marinette's room that week only to find her laying out the materials he was going to model while wearing that bikini she'd teased him about, and, well...

Not a lot of _modeling_ happened that day, that was for sure.)


End file.
